Observations on the Flora of Japan. 



{Continued from p. 222.) 



By 



T. Makiiio. 



Lecturer of Botany in the Science College, 

 Imperial University of Tokyo. 



Isopyrum nipponicum Franch. in Bull. Soc. Bot. 

 France, XXVL (1879), p. 82 ; Maxim, in Mel. Biol. XI. p. 631 ; 

 Huth in Bull. Herb. Boiss. V. p. 1088 ; Makino in Bot. Mag., 

 Tokyo, XI. p. 171, et in Icon. Fl. Jap. I. 1, tab. 3. 



A glabrous flaccid perennial herb, about 6-20 cm. high. 



Rhizome hypogaeous or subhypog^ous, fleshy, pellucid, colourless 



or more or less greenish, but fuscous-brown when dried, oblique 



or sometimes erect, usually loosely and scantily ramose with 



obliquely spreading branches, covered with numerous alternate 



persistent vagina of old leaves, which* their blades and petioles 



are already fallen off ; vaginae clasping the rhizome at the base, 



ovate to orbicular, somewhat navicular, entire-margined, emar- 



ginate at the apex and with a short remain of the old petiole 



at the back of the apex, fleshy, carnose in centre and gradually 



thinner towards the margin, obtuse at the back, with sunk 



triple-nerves, about 4-9 mm. long ; roots numerous, filiform, 



branched, whitish, more or less darkish in the inferior old ones, 



dark-brown when dried, hairy throughout. Leaves annual, 



reclined in vernation, flaccidly herbaceous. Radical leaves 1 



to few to a rhizome or its branch, erect, long-petiolate ; common 



petiole longer than the lamina, subterete, slender, smooth, fleshy, 



light green and tinged with more or less purpurascent colour, 



attaining about 8cm. in length, vaginte at the base, the vagina 



3-5 mm. long, inflated ; lamina cordato-orbicular or broadly 



cordato-orbicular in outline, attaining about 5 cm. in length, 



horizontally holding its position, sub-biternatisected or rarely 



